1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device, an image processing system, an image processing method and a non-transitory computer readable recording medium. The present invention more specifically relates to a technique for the image processing device of executing a job in cooperation with a server.
2. Description of the Background Art
In conventional environments that a plurality of image processing devices are connected through a network, an image processing device serves as a server to establish communication with a wireless terminal and causes the other image processing devices to return from power save mode to stand-by mode in response to a request from the wireless terminal. This known technique is introduced for example in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. JP 2009-89256 A. The image processing device serving as the server sometimes fails to return the other image processing devices to stand-by mode when the image processing device is abruptly powered off. In order to prevent this, according to the conventional technique, after detecting that its main power being turned off, the image processing device selects an alternative image processing device of the plurality of image processing devices that serves as the server while the power is supplied through a supplemental power and returns the selected alternative image processing device to stand-by mode.
On the other hand, conventional image processing devices such as MFPs have been capable of executing jobs in cooperation with a server providing application services. It is assumed that the server provides an OCR (Optical Character Reader) service that extracts characters from image data. For such server, image data generated by reading a document is sent to the server by the image processing device, and a process to extract characters is performed by the server. This series of process is performed in cooperation between the image processing device and the server. The image processing device works together with the server, thereby executing jobs that would not be otherwise possible for the image processing device alone.
This type of image processing device, for example, acquires screen images as to the application services from the server and displays on an operational panel installed on the device body. The user operates the screen image displayed on the operational panel of the image processing device, thereby giving instructions to the server to start the application up and to execute the job in cooperation with the image processing device.
In these days, portable terminals such as smart phones and tablet terminals have become widely popular. The portable terminals have functions including wireless communication function and network communication function. This type of portable terminals will be utilized as well as the operational panel as an external terminal of the image processing device in near future. So, the job execution instruction will be given to the image processing device by remote control.
It becomes difficult for the image processing device and the server to work together normally to execute the job as described above if the portable terminal is used as the external terminal of the image processing device. That is because, the server determines that the access request received from the portable terminal through the network is that from devices other than the image processing device. As a result, the server rejects the request. The plurality of image processing devices may be connected together through the network. Especially in such a case, the server is neither allowed to designate with which image processing device of the plurality of image processing devices the server should be in cooperation nor to determine which command should be used for communication with the image processing device even if there is an access from the portable terminal. The server, therefore, rejects the access request from the device different from the image processing device.
In order to prevent this, when receiving the access request from the portable terminal, for example, the server may cause screen image to make a user select the image processing device with which the server works together or command system for use in communication with the image processing device to be displayed with the portable terminal. A function to make such screen image display needs to be included in the server, and existing servers may not be used. If, however, the server is equipped with such function, an operation load on the server is increased. Also, the server may become less efficient execution of the job in cooperation with the image processing device.